GSMA Europe Mobile Meetings Series: Empowering Patients: Big Data Sets For Better Health

The growing Internet of Things (IoT) is already generating a huge amount of data. The availability and confluence of rich data sets from multiple systems, organisations and verticals is creating a massive socio-economic opportunity.

Health is one notable area where so-called big data could deliver significant benefits to citizens, governments and businesses. But realising these benefits will require stakeholders to overcome several challenges. The recently published Commission’s study on Big Data in Public Health, Telemedicine and Healthcare highlights many of these challenges and makes several clear policy recommendations.

The latest GSMA Europe Mobile Meeting Series, which took place on 7 February in Brussels and was moderated by Member of European Parliamant Eva Kaili, brought together executives from the healthcare and tech sectors with representatives of the European Commission, EU Member States and civil society. The discussion focused on how mobile technologies can enable patient empowerment through the capture of big data.

Participants debated how to make EU citizens feel comfortable with sharing their data and how to facilitate greater uptake of technology by healthcare professionals. To build the necessary trust and confidence in mobile applications, devices and services and give patients the possibility to benefit from digital healthcare solutions, it was agreed that it is critical to have a clear and transparent legislative framework that protects consumers and supports innovation.

Both patients and healthcare professionals need to be empowered and able to understand and harness the advantages offered by digital health solutions. To provide the best environment for continued mobile health and wellness innovations, the industry needs a legislative framework that is both user-friendly and innovation-friendly. At the same time, data collection, storage and management solutions must be built in collaboration with all health stakeholders, policy makers and ICT industry.

The EU has an important role to play in supporting the trust and security of data by ensuring consistency across EU regulations and effectively delivering the European Digital Single Market.

Learn more about the Mobile Meetings Series programme here.